Happy Birthday Blog!

Today I have given birth to my first 'fit' blog! It is not a pretty blog yet, it needs a pretty layout and a cool 'add me on facebook' tab...it needs links and favorites...but that will all elvolve. For now I have a sounding board and a place to let it all out. I looked high and low for a 'fitness' blog that had crafty little exercise things that I could make and the latest cute thing I could take to the gym, but alas, I found none. Paired with great tutorials will be the tips and struggles and the everday things that are helping me to become the amazing person I know that I can be. Disclaimer that I am not a doctor, not a fitness guru or a nutrition major or an instructor or anyone who has the right to give advice.

MY DIRTY LAUNDRY:
I have the typical fat girl story and the few awful things that stick out while growing up were the cruel kids on the bus who repeated 'ways a ton' over and over everytime i got on the bus and being at church camp and sitting in the hot sticky sun in a dress my mom made me because I couldn't fit into anything else. All of my friends had met 'boyfriends' at camp and I didn't even go to the dance because I did not want to sit against the wall the whole night. In high school one of my friends and I began making ourselves puke after we ate. I started doing it so much that one day I could NOT STOP throwing up. Funny thing is that I wasn't even 'skinny'. But I still had to be hospitalized...for 'food poisoning'. It wasn't until about 15 years later that I told my mom what I had been doing. About six years ago I did Atkins...for a year I NEVER drank pop and I swear to you that not one piece of candy/cookie/ice cream or sweet passed my lips. I had just had surgery on my spine (L4 and L5) so I walked 3 miles every day for that year. I lost ONE HUNDRED pounds and hit 150. I felt amazing and loved the attention and thought I finally had it figured out. And then my husband at the time used me for a punching bag. I never looked back on that relationship and I filed for divorce the same day, and the eating began. I do not post all of this personal information for anyone to feel sorry for me. My intention on airing my dirty laundry is that it will help someone else to see that if I can do this, that they can too. 2 years ago my dad had a stroke. it left him paralyzed on the entire left side. My mom decided that he would NOT be put in a nursing home, so we cared for him at home. It was the hardest, most stressfull thing in the world but it was also the biggest blessing because I got to know my dad and hear his stories and I got to know a person I never really tried to know before. I remember 'dad-sitting' and we would watch tv and eat all day. That was our entertainment and our fun. We knew that giving my 260 lb dad the fruit pies and klondike bars was not good for him, but we also knew that it was one of the only things he enjoyed that he could still have. Eating made him happy so we feed him well....so I sat and ate and ate and ate. The day before valentines day my dad asked me to get a dozen roses for mom from him. I was taken back, this is the tough guy who was never big on gifts and NEVER a dozen roses for mom..even after 34 years of marriage. But I told him I'd order them. That same evening my dad died of the final and biggest stroke. He went quickly and my brother and I and my mom were all right there...but that doesn't make it easier. The next day, Valentines day, the roses were delivered to my mom.
And this is when I decided that I did not want to die early. I did not want to eat toast and gravy for the rest of my life and be too fat to do anything with my kids. I was sick and tired of weighing 250 pounds and no matter what happened, I WOULD NOT GIVE UP. Since that day I have went from 250 to 192. That is not a huge amount but it is nothing to balk at either. I messed up a million times and struggled to figure out how to fit in gym time and good food...but I am doing it one day at a time. My little struggles have started to add up and my trainer has never given up on me even though I just know there's days he probably wanted to put his hands up and walk away. I am on my way to my weight loss goal, and right now when I look into the mirror, I see amazing.